NEWS BY THE MIL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 507, 4 January 1870, Page 3

NEWS BY THE MIL.

The Serpentine has been undergoing the process of draining. On October 9 the operations were suspended, and a sufficient quantity of water was ; left for the sustenance of the fish. On the following Monday Mr Frank Buckland, Mr Henry Lee, and other gentjemen, attended to superintend the catching of the said fish. A good many hauls were - VPre" made, and several thousands of fish <Japtured, including some very large, bream, carp, Prussian carp, tench, and an immense quantity of large roach, one largelperch, and one lake trout, which had been put into the Serpentine by Mr Buckland some two years since. . All were placed in watering carts, and conveyed to the" round .pond," Kensington Gardens. Very few fish died on the journey, owing to the care Mr Buckland took in their removal. A Quebec paper says :— Since the landing of His Royal Highness. Prince Arthur at Halifax on the 21st -August last, he has not been idle, as the following record will show. During his sojourn he has received and replied to 161 addresses in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario, attended 107 luncheons and dejejunera, and 39 balls. The -Prince has also .danced with 340 partners, received over 1700 special bouquets, shaken 15,000 hand?, given 69 presents, and has been elected a Mohawk chief. He has shot 150 head of game, has travelled 4800 miles, and has heard some 2,000,000 ' God . bless hims.' ..All this to be accomplished in seven weeks was pretty severe work. The prince how desires peace and quiet to rest and recruit himself. The tide on the Thames rose on the 3rd and 4th November to a height far exceeding that attained in the early part of the previous month, when extensive preparations were made to meet the damage expected from the "great tidal wave." On the 3rd, the event being wholly unexpected, no preparations had been made, and considerable damage was .clone to property on both sides of the river. At Hammersmith the water was up on the road, and the steamboat accompanying a boat ; . race was much damaged in a fruitless attempt . to pass under the Suspension Bridge, much to — the chagrin of those who had paid their money -to see the race. At Chatham the tide rose 21 feet at the dockyard, which is a foot and a half more than the highest rise at the beginning of last month. At Ramsgate the tide was very high, and a portion of the East Cliff was washed down. The Gobs of St. Petersburg states that the principal meeting place of the. Skoptzi (sect of the mutilated) has just been discovered at Moscow in the house of four brothers named Koudrin. These men had a photographic studio near the tbisatre, where the idols adored by the Skojitzi were manufactured. M. Tikhomiroff, the Crown prosecutor, has discovered some of the persons employed in this manufacture, who have confessed that the Skoptzi hold their religious meetings in the house at night, s.nd that there is a conTent attached to the building. An inquiry has since taken place, from which it appears that the brothers Koudrin have been in the habit of kidnapping children between the ages of eight and twelve, end then forcing them to become members of the sect. The •listrict of Serpoukhcv, in which the house is iSituated, is said to be full of Skoptzi, and 48 women belonging to the sect have been ari rested. The Queen has appointed the Eight Hon. Jameß Moncrihff, Her Majesty's Advocate ilor Scotland, U> be Justice Clerk and President of the Second Division of the Court of fiessiioa in Scotland, and also one of the JJenstors of thti College of Justice there; also to confer the office of Advocate for Scotland upon George Young, Esq., Solicitor-General for Scotland, in the room of the Right Hon. James Moncrieff, appointed Justice Clerk and President of the Second Division of the Court of Session in Scotland ; and to grant the office of Solicitor-General for Scotland to Andrew Rutherfurd Clark, Esq., advocate (now Sheriff of Haddington and Berwick). In the Court of Session, on October 19, Mr Moncrieff presented his commission aB Lord Justice-Clerk to a full bench of judges, and took the oath and his. seat as President of the Second Division. The new Lord Advocate and Solic<tor-General also presented their commissions. Mr Moncrieff takes the title of Lord Moncrieff. Despite Mr Gladstone's letter, and the counsels, of a minority of the Amnesty Committee, the "demonstration" in favour of the Fenian prisoners came off on October 24. The Government had determined that, except in the event of a breach of peace, there should be no interference on the part of the police either with the procession through the streets or the meeting in Hyde Park. If the affair was meant to te a Fenian demonstration, nothing could have been less successful. If it was intended to serve v the captiveß "-— as the.placards styled the Fenian convictsit was equally a failure. The affair was the reverse of imposing. The only result it is likely to have was it« immediate one. It interrupted for an hour or two the traffic of some of the leading thoroughfares in the West end. There was a good deal of speechifying, in the course of which the patriots were highly extolled. The crowd, however, exhibited very little enthusiasm, and the whole affair, as a demonstration, may be said to have been a failure. Numerous inquiries have, reached us, says the Army and Navy Gazette, asking why the New Zealand medal has not yet been issued. Six months ago the medals were finished casting, &c, by the Mint; the ribbon (a very appropriate one) decided on and approved by his Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief, .and, we. believe, by her Majepty; the lists of $be names' of candidates' sent, in to the Admiralty arid Horse Guards, and yet no issue 1 Rumour says that the fact of the Commander-in-chief having approved of the ribbon before it was approved by the home department in the War-office, has .offended, a, . clerk in the" department, and Bumbledom' has determined

that the ribbon shall be altered, and so has stopped the issue. Fortunately a sample of the approved ribbon is in the possession of an influential member of Parliament, and, should any alteration be attempted, he is determined to sift the matter to the bottom. The ribbon has, however, bean exhibited at the orderlyroom of the Ist battalion 12 th (East Suffolk) Regiment, at Aldershott. It has . blue fringe and a red stripe down the centre. The ex-Queen of Spain has serious thoughts of retiring from the gaieties of Parisian life. The Gaulois - stateß that her Majesty has bought a little property near Gonesse, in the department of the Seine-et-Oise, where Sister Patrocinio and a score of nuns are going to set up an establishment. The original landlord of the property is paid to have been a retired rag-picker of Paris, who has gone to his native town to enjoy his oliuin cum dignitate. The idea of a Queen buying property from a chiffonier is certainly suggestive of the vanity of all things human. The same journal tells us that Queen Isabella has decided on going to Rome at the epoch of the Council. Her son, the Prince of the Asturias, will receive his first communion from the hands of the Pope on December 8, the day of the Immaculate Conception. Papal politeness almost verges on the Chinese style. In his recent letter "to his holy daughter, Isabella IF., Queen of Spain," the Pope invites her to attend, with her " very happy husband" and " holy children," the CEeumenical Council. The Irish Times mentions how three little children, aged respectively 1 1, 6, and 4, set out from the neighbourhood of Louisburg, a pretty town near Mayo, and made: their way via Dublin, Liverpool, and New York, to Chicago. They had no friend or protector in their company, and their sole viaticum being but 10s, to pay their way to Liverpool, and a ticket to carry them thence to their destination. A gentleman who happened to travel up to Dublin in the same train with the three children, spoke to them, and finding them shpeless and stockingless, he gave them his railway rug, and took them to some friends, who equipped them in some better plight for their long journey. But these acts of kindness were accidents on which the* children' had not reckoned, and could not have reckoned. They only knew that from beyond a wide ocean a father's voice summoned them, and they obeyed the call. There was no grand gentleman to place them in safe hands. There was no benevolent lady to see after their little clothes, nor any human being to ask the question, were they hungry ? But, alone and unaided, in their new cotton frocks and skimpy summer shawls, they undertook a journey which even a strong man, with plenty of money in his pocket, considers a serious one. , The murder of two ladies at Brussels, which has just come to light, i 9 surrounded by a mystery which it is difficult to solve, though it is clear that the inciting motive to the commission of the dreadful crime was plunder. It was not usual for the deceased ladies to retain large sums of money in the house; but a few days ago Madame Van de Ppel went to her notary, and, complaining of the small interest which her investments in the public funds yielded, instructed him to sell out, so that she could invest the amount in house property, of which she owned a considerable amount. He obeyed her directions, and only the dty before the murder paid her 11,000 francs in notes. The whole of this sum is missing, although 500 francs in gold and silver were left behind in a drawer in the room where the tragedy was enacted. The police have made an arrest on suspicion, but they are very reserved about the man. It has, however, transpired that the prisoner has several bruises and scratches en his face, and spots of blood on his clothes, and that he fails to give a satisfactory account of himself on the night of the murders. He is said to have been employed by Madame Van de Poel in repairs of her property, and may in this way have acquired a knowledge of the habits of the deceased, and the peculiarities of their dwelling. Intense excitement prevails in Brussels, where crimes of such magnitude have hitherto been rare. The Prince of Wales arrived at Chester on October 14th, and met with a very hearty reception — Mr Gladstone being amongst those who welcomed him to the ancient city. His Royal Highness was accompanied by the Princess. The torchlight procession and illumination were very effective. The main object for which the Prince of Wales visited Chester— the opening of the new Town Hall —took place on October 15th, amid the general joy of the inhabitants. An entertainment was afterwards given, at which the Mayor proposed the health of the Prince as Earl of Chester, to which the Prince replied, and announced Her Majesty's intention to confer the honour of knighthood on the Mayor. The festivities connected with his Rojal Highness' visit terminated with a ball, and he returned to town on October 1 6, not much fatigued apparently by the round of duties or pleasures he had gone through during the previous two days, for he visited the Princess' Theatre in the evening, accompanied by the Princess. One picture at the illumination at Chester In honour of the Prince of Wales'a visit to that city was very comical. His Boyal Highness, owing to -a slight puncture where the eye was painted on the canvas, was made to appear winking perpetually at a small porkshopover the way. The crowd enjoyed the fun, and one of them hinted that the winking was a part of the design. This insinuation so hurt the worthy householder that he instantly turned off the gas and left the Prince in darkness. Despite the earnest advice of friends and the suggestive warning contained in the Premier's letter, the amnesty agitation continues in some parts of Ireland. Meetings have been held at Carrigaline, county Cork, Tralee, and Tipperary. In each contingents from adjoining localities augmented the attendance. A procession of the trades, numbering 3000, left Cork. for Carrigaline, with bands and banners, and received large accessions as it went along. There were the usual "national"

demonstrations. The chair was taken by the Very Rev Canon M'Swiney, P.P. The Tralee meeting assembled in obedience to the following entraordinary summons, which was placarded over the county. It was headed " Kerry for the Amnesty :" — " Monster meeting in Tralee, to protest most earnestly with Europa and America, and with the whole civilised world, against the further incarceration of our patriot brother. Then, patriot people of Kerry, come ! come ! 1 Out with your horses and gigs, waggonettes, and, side cars, and common carts. Up with the saddles ; out with the whips and spurs ! Come along to assist in the moral struggle for the rescue of the political prisoners? Come to save the confessors of libarty from hunger and insanity, from insults worse than death, which are crushing the souls and spirits of those heroes. ' Come, men and women of the ancient 'Kingdom of Kerry,' and do not for the sake of the memory of your ancestors, even at the eleventh hour, bear the sneer, perhaps, of your own kith and kin in another land. As it is, we are now behind the age. It is your imperative duty, men and women of Kerry, to attend, as a number of your friends suff.r. God save Ireland!" There was i procession of the local trades, with bands and the " national " emblems, and by an unhappy coincidence, the exhibition was accompanied by some inauspicious circumstances. A hearse brought up the rear, and the platform, which was hastily put together, broke down under the weight of the speakers. The meeting numbered altogether about 5000. Resolutions were adopted similar to those passed at other demonstrations. . The Tipperary meeting was the most imposing of the three. It is estimated that 70,000 persons attended, and various districts of Waterford and Limerick were represented. There was a monster procession of the trades. They had no fewer than 180 banners on the field.